


Experimental Treatment

by Bullfinch



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, Trans Fenris, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4535553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris speaks in a constant monotone to conceal how high his voice really is. But that seems like a problem that could be fixed by a skilled healer. Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Experimental Treatment

**Author's Note:**

> • Rated T for some sparse profanity and, um, Isabela.  
> • Takes place very early in the game.  
> • Written and posted all in one morning! Not advisable  
> • First time writing Anders so sorry if you can tell (never thought I'd end up writing him but here we are).  
> • Created mainly b/c I still remember how Incredibly Awesome it was when my voice finally dropped and I hope that comes across at least a little

Aveline’s got her arms folded, the picture of austerity, but her face says she’s willing to let herself be convinced. All she needs is someone to do the convincing—a task Hawke is undertaking earnestly. “Listen, I know there’s probably some paperwork that we haven’t quite done yet,” he says, “but this place was abandoned, there’s no reason not to let her live—“

“Him,” Fenris mutters.

Everyone sort of stops for a second.

“I…am male.” Fenris shrinks further back into the shadows of the atrium, away from the sunny doorstep. “Despite all appearances.”

“All right then.” Hawke turns to Aveline. “There’s no reason not to let  _him_  live here. The house’ll just sit empty otherwise.”

Aveline puts forth a token protest. Likely wants to argue just the right amount, so she can say at least she tried to uphold the letter of the law before conceding to the spirit. Anders isn’t really listening. ‘Him,’ eh? So that’s why she— _he_ —always walks around so hunched-over, and keeps his hair chopped short (chopped as in really chopped, as if with a dagger—the results are…inexpert), and talks in that lifeless monotone, the better to hide the true pitch of his voice. Anders frowns. Is it possible…he taps his throat, the knob below his chin. Is it possible something could be done about that last part?

“Anders?”

“Hm?” He blinks, his thoughts interrupted.

“Ah, so you are with us.” Hawke gestures. “Shall we? That ambush won’t foil itself.”

Anders nods. “Right. Let’s go.”

——

“Uh…so do you want to tell me  _why_  you’re doing this?”

“Because it’s too hard to do all of it on myself.” Anders hopes dwarf anatomy is analogous enough to human and elf anatomy so he can make some sense of this. “Now be quiet for a moment.”

Varric heaves a long-suffering sigh and falls silent.

The magic rises easily to Anders’s fingertips, radiates through Varric’s skin and brushes the structures of his throat. Right. That’s not so different from how his own throat looks. Now for the parts he couldn’t do alone. “All right, start talking.”

“About what?”

“Anything. Tell me a story.”

“All right, Blondie. But remember, you asked for it.”

——

Isabela gathers her hair away from Anders’s hand, her legs swinging over the edge of the sickbed. “Look at you. And you haven’t even had me take my clothes off yet.”

“Oh, for—“ Anders scrambles to correct her. “It’s for research!”

“ _Oh,_ I see how it is.” She nods understandingly, and her dark cheeks redden—can she  _blush on command?_  Her voice goes soft and trembling. “Professor, I work for you, this isn’t right—but I just  _can’t_  stop thinking about your enormous…research grants—“

Anders yanks his hand back and takes a deep breath to regain his composure. Isabela crosses her ankles and grins at him.

——

He’s asked them to come back a few times and thinks he knows what must be done.

Which, of course, is no reassurance at all, considering he’s never bloody done anything like this before. What if he makes a mistake? A really awful one? What if Fenris can never speak again? Or worse, becomes unable to breathe?

Not that he’s thinking about it right now. Right now he’s arguing. Again.

 _“Aveline and I need to talk to the viscount. Stay here and please, try not to kill each other.”_ Then Hawke disappeared up the stairs, leaving Anders standing beside Fenris in a corner of the hall.

It did take them at least two minutes to start fighting. That’s something. Isn’t it? No, not particularly, not least because they’re inside the viscount’s keep with a dozen nobles staring at them and are only a few decibels away from shouting at each other. “You’ve been to the Gallows!” Anders flings a hand out. “You’ve seen what it’s like there! And you still think that’s  _right?”_

“It’s far better than the alternative!” Fenris snaps.

“Oh, for Andraste’s—there aren’t just two choices here, there are  _plenty_  of better ways! For instance—“

“And they will all lead to the rise of another magisterium! The kind of power mages wield  _must_  not be allowed to—“

Then he breaks off, his cheeks flushing, and turns away.

Anders stares. “What? What is it?”

“I tire of discussing this with you. It is clear you will not see reason.” The monotone again. A stark change from only seconds ago…

…when, in the heat of the moment, his voice rose to its more natural pitch. Oh. So that’s why their arguments never seem to get very far. “I can fix that for you, you know,” Anders blurts out.

Fenris narrows his eyes in suspicion. “What are you talking about, mage?”

Shit. Well, it’s all or nothing now. “Your voice. I know you don’t like it. I can…make it lower. So maybe people will stop mistaking you for a woman.”

Fenris’s face folds into an awful mixture of hurt and betrayal. “You…you can do that? And you never said—“

“No! That’s not— _argh.”_  He heaves a sigh. “Give me at least a scrap of credit, would you? I’ve never done something like this before, I had to spend some time working out how. I didn’t want to botch the spell and leave you mute. Or dead.”

Fenris pauses. “We…are not friends. And yet you say you…spent time on this magic.”

“Well, yes.” Anders shrugs. “If you keep cutting off our debates halfway through, how am I ever supposed to convince you of anything?”

That earns the hint of a smile. Then Fenris folds his arms. “And now…you say you  _can_  do it? Change my voice?”

Can he? He’s never had a chance to test it before. And never will, either. This is rather an exceptional situation. “I…probably.“ He starts to summon the healing magic, raises his hand—

—only to have Fenris grab it, hard. “Unwise to do this here, don’t you think?” he hisses.

In the middle of the viscount’s keep, after they’ve just been shouting at each other. Right. But Anders is afraid he’ll lose his nerve if he waits any longer. So he jerks his head, toward the shabby wooden door behind them.

It’s a storage room, hidden away under the stairs, piled with stained carpets and torn tapestries. Fenris shuts the door and hovers there. “May I ask…how confident are you that you will not, in fact, kill me?”

“Extremely. Utterly. Not even the slightest chance of it.” Anders almost manages to convince himself with that. “Now do me a favor and hold very, very still.”

Fenris grasps the rolled-up carpet leaned up against the wall beside him (not the best choice, Anders reflects, for a sturdy handhold). The trepidation on his face wars with a desperate hope that Anders can hardly bear to see—what if the spell doesn’t work, or goes wrong? Fenris is putting an incredible amount of trust in him, especially considering their relationship (or lack thereof).

But there’s no reason to be nervous. Anders knows every detail of what must be done. He’ll never be better prepared than he is now.

So he rests his fingers on Fenris’s throat.

Fenris flinches, jerks a hand up to grab him, then stops. Anders freezes, then attempts a smile. “Listen, we both know that in the time it took me to choke you to death, you could kill me about six different ways. So you really don’t have to worry.”

“Yes. I apologize.” His hands fall to his sides once more.

Anders shuts his eyes.

Below the skin, the firm pieces of tissue, symmetrical and exact as if formed by an expert mason or smith. Untrue, of course—it’s only the impenetrable course of nature. Anders sinks deeper, finds the sections that need to change, the small, tough flaps that need to stretch and thicken. Not for the first time he wishes that working this magic didn’t take so much of his attention—optimally, he could ask Fenris to speak as he was doing this, in order to judge the change in pitch and check for anything out of the ordinary. But he can’t afford to spare the focus to listen. Instead he concentrates on the task at hand, on the tissue with which he must negotiate.  _Grow,_  he urges.  _Grow._

It starts to grow.

Anders is so surprised it’s working that he halts after only a second, his concentration falling to pieces. Well, that wasn’t much progress, but he supposes he can always go a little further if it’s not enough. Far easier to ask structures to grow than to make them smaller. Without cutting bits off, of course. “All right.” He shakes his hands out. “How’s that?”

Fenris touches the new protrusion under his chin. “It sort of—oh.”

Anders’s jaw falls open. He did  _not_  mean to go that deep. Apparently elven anatomy is not as analogous with human or dwarf anatomy as he had thought. A close call indeed. He decides not to mention that.

Fenris’s voice has transformed into a sort of rumbly growl that, Anders must admit, is not altogether unpleasant to listen to. In fact, it…might actually be pleasant. If the man weren’t so infuriating, that is. “I sound…different. Very different.” Any leftover irritation or nervousness or shame is gone. Fenris smiles like one whose cares have all evaporated as dew before the rising sun. “This is…unexpected.”

“Is it…bad?” Anders asks, hesitant. “Did I do too much?”

“No! Not at all.” Fenris’s fingers are still on his own throat, tracing the lump of tissue. “No, it’s excellent. It’s just—I never imagined I would sound like this. Always thought I’d have to make myself speak that way forever. And now—“

There’s a knock on the door. “Are you two decent?” Hawke. “Some nobles said you’d ducked in here and, well, I must say I never imagined—“

Anders yanks the door open. “No! It’s nothing like that!”

Fenris drifts forward. “Hello, Hawke.”

Hawke staggers back and makes a stricken noise halfway between surprise and something that sounds suspiciously like arousal. Aveline, meanwhile, starts and gasps. “Fenris! Your voice! That’s—that’s amazing!”

“Yes. Well—“ Now he seems to shy from the attention, and drop his eyes. “The mage…changed it for me.”

Aveline turns to Anders. “Really? You did that just now? We can’t have been gone more than ten minutes.”

“I’ve been preparing the spell for some time.” Anders at last allows himself to relax. He did it. Nothing went wrong. “Although to be honest, I’m surprised it went off that well.”

“It’s incredible. Truly. You should be proud of yourself.” She nods. “Look how happy he is.”

Hawke has recovered by now, and he and Fenris are deep in conversation. Fenris is still smiling. Anders doesn’t think he’s ever seen the man smile for more than three seconds at a time before.

Hawke’s grinning too, like a child who’s just made a brand new friend. “Can we go tell everyone?”

——

It’s more than just the voice and the smiling.

Anders has never seen Fenris like this. He was always reserved, taciturn. But now, at the Hanged Man, he’s talking so much Anders almost thinks it babbling before he realizes it’s only a normal amount of speech, just ten times more than they usually hear from Fenris.

The monotone is gone. Fenris is expressive, his face by turns cheery, excited, astonished, a whole range Anders has never seen before. And his voice is full of life, rising and falling, the dips and vaults a little awkward—plainly Fenris isn’t used to this—but remarkable all the same.

 _Did I do all that?_  Anders finds himself thinking.

Varric sets a mug of ale in front of him and claps him on the shoulder. “So that’s what all that poking around my neck was about.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry to keep it from you, I didn’t want to get his hopes up only to figure out it couldn’t be done after all.”

“Well, your hard work paid off. On that note—let me propose a toast!” Varric calls, raising his mug.

Oh no. Anders doesn’t want his part in this highlighted—Maker forbid they think he actually  _likes_  Fenris or something. But it’s too late. Fenris (a little drunk by now, or perhaps more than a little) answers the toast, lifting his own mug. “To the mage!”

A series of answering hurrahs from around the table. Anders drinks with them, faintly miserable; but he decides the praise isn’t all that unwelcome. It’s nice to feel like he’s done something really good. Even if it was for that bullheaded, mage-hating elf.

They’re back to arguing a week later. This time it isn’t Fenris’s self-consciousness that stops them, but rather the moments when Aveline’s patience finally breaks and she rounds on them with a fury neither dares to defy.

So they walk on, the sun lancing through the trees, Sundermount looming a mile ahead. Anders wants to shout in frustration but feels that would be childish in the extreme, so he keeps his peace.

“Are you beginning to regret it?” Fenris asks him.

“What?”

Fenris half-smiles. “Giving me my voice.”

Anders exhales, controlling, with effort, every snapped comeback that rises to his tongue.

Then: “Thank you.” Fenris guides a low branch out of the way. “Sincerely.”

A hundred things to say here. All of them petty. So Anders goes with the only one that’s honest. “I’m glad it worked.”


End file.
